Red Wolf's Room

--This review contains spoilers-- Tessa Dare's Romancing the Duke tells the tale of Isolde Ophelia Goodnight whose father leaves her destitute because he failed to revise his will before his passing. Isolde, who goes by Izzy, grew up believing in fairytales, but now at the age of 26, she is sure she is destined for spinsterhood. She receives a letter from her godfather's solicitor who tells her that she has inherited the ruin called Gostley Castle.  However, the dashing Ransom William Dacre Vane, the eleventh Duke of Rothbury, claims he is the current owner and the castle was never sold to Izzy's godfather. Ransom has been living in his decrepit castle with an injury that left him blind, so for many months, he has been unaware of his thieving solicitors who have been committing fraud since he cannot read his mail or review his finances without help. Until the matter of ownership is resolved, Izzy is determined to remain in the castle despite Ransom's attempts to fright...

Source:  https://unsplash.com/photos/zjV8ptYgcEo So, I've been following a bunch of Booktubers for a while now, and I have seen them do tags in their videos, so I thought I'd give it a try. I saw a tag on _Lindsayreads  called Book Blogger Confessions and thought I'd give it a go.  QUESTION 1: Which Book, Most Recently, Did You Not Finish? I have a Did Not Finish (DNF) pile, but I am determined to finish them, I swear! I am such a mood reader. I've started: Erebus by Michael Palin ( I have read The Terror by Dan Simmons, which was awesome and at times a bit gruesome) Everything All at Once by Bill Nye (the Science Guy) The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft D'Art et de Sang by Benjamin Faucon QUESTION 2: Which Book Is Your Guilty Pleasure? It's not in my nature to reread books that I love and keep, although, I keep the ones I love just in case I do want to reread them. Did that make sense? The only candidate, aside from my Nancy Drew co...

Image source:  https://unsplash.com/photos/3y1zF4hIPCg  I have always been drawn to tragic heroes, conflicted characters, angsty characters and characters that appear to be bad, but have the potential to be good. Some characters spring to mind: Severus Snape , Henry Bolet from the game Nancy Drew #17: Legend of the Crystal Skull ,   Hamlet ,  Dr. Jonathan Willaway from The Fantastic Journey. Even my own creative writing was more often full of angst, anger and sadness. I always thought that it meant that I liked conflict. I know conflict is what drives a story, so I thought nothing more of it.  Until now. Is it chaos I've always been drawn to or both conflict and chaos? Conflict From a story stand-point, there are internal and external conflicts. As you probably know, an internal conflict is when a character struggles with opposing thoughts and emotions. As a Libra, I identify with this and love characters who have an internal struggle. According to Dave Snowde...

  What Am I Supposed to Do?   I wanna talk, But the words won’t leave. I wanna cry, But the pain is too deep.   I wanna hear your voice, But I know what you’ll say. I wanna be your friend, But you’re too far away.   What am I supposed to do, By myself, behind the veil? What am I supposed to do, When no one knows I fail?   I don’t have the strength To say what I need. I don’t have the will To follow this life I lead.   The emotions bubble up From feelings ignored. No one can help me Find motivation when I’m bored.   The job is a fair one, So, shut up and do it. I choke on my words, Not wanting to quit.   What am I supposed to do? I don’t know where I am. I’ve lost the ability to rest. How can I get out of this jam?    

Writers are like anyone else; they don’t like rejection. People seek to avoid rejection, which means they will also avoid opportunities and people that could have made a lasting impact on them. Whether we like it or not, life is a balance and, in that balance, there is pleasure as well as pain. Image source:  https://www.pexels.com/photo/focus-photo-of-yellow-paper-near-trash-can-850216/ This blog post describes my own experience of how I dealt with rejection as a writer. There is no quick and easy way to deal with it. Everyone deals with rejection differently. It could be slower or it could be faster than another person. Just remember to not compare yourself to others. I am sharing my story to hopefully provide you with some insight should you ever find yourself in a similar position. You are not alone.  I’m also sharing to entertain you. After all, people love stories. The Beginning In the middle of the night, I sat among the shadows of my room with my lamp’s light focus...

Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-man-touching-his-head-3752834/ Some of you may recall that I wrote about the COVID-19 quarantine , lockdown, pandemic, crisis, however you call it, and reflected on it from a writerly perspective. It is now two months later, and I, an introvert, have been feeling incredibly anxious. No, it has nothing to do with writing or the quarantine. It's other things in the real world. Yes, you remember. The world that's all around you while you're deep within your beloved books? I don't exactly excel at adulting (still not sure I like that word) and Life has been getting me down. Life and my own damn fears. While I'm an introvert and I like staying inside, even on sunny days, I'm not entirely okay with being physically alone almost 24/7. Anyways... What Can Help Anxiety? ASMR! I've been exploring the ASMR community on YouTube since the quarantine was announced in March. I discovered ASMR Weekly and that le...

--Spoilers-- Summary The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett is broken up into three time periods:  The Distant Past (1592-1879)  The Recent Past (1983-1994)  The Present (1995) The Present The story begins with Peter Byerly in 1995. He is a young antiquarian bookseller who is in mourning over his wife's death. It has been nine months since Amanda's passing when he finally finds the interest to enter a bookshop and browse around. He has always been a shy and anxious type of person, so breathing in the books and holding them brings him a sense of calm. One book draws his attention because of the exquisite binding, which reminds him of his university days when he was learning the art of book binding. But inside this book is the spitting image of his dead wife, only it is a century old. The watercolor painting by a mysterious painter named "B.B." starts the fire burning within Peter, and he hunts down the painting's origin to fi...